Long forms in Chinese Martial Arts is an interesting topic. In my own (maybe not so) humble opinion, forms are overrated. But also very underrated. Like everything else in this world, they are usually taught and practiced for wrong reasons. In Taijiquan, most of a practitioners time goes to practice a form. Why has it become so?
Chinese forms are called Daolu (套路), a “road set” or “walking a road”, sometimes just called Dao (套), a “set”. They consists of movements strung together in sequences. Some schools have many different forms, other arts have only one.
Some Chinese styles have developed what could be seen as an extreme amount of forms, both barehanded and weapons, as Choy Li Fut and Hung Gar. In Choy Li Fut, I have absolutely no clue how they can have other time for practice than remembering all forms. Hung Gar is a bit better. Originally, this art was jus one form, the Iron Thread (or Iron Wire form), and later more and more forms was added to shape a ladder of progress, starting from purely external training, to put more and more emphasis on internal aspects.
In earlier times, there were probably no set form in Tai Ci Chuan, but only stances, single movements and short drills that the practitioner would put together himself, string together, to a personal form. This is probably the reason for the old name of Tai Chi, “Mianquan”. It’s often translated to “cotton fist/boxing”, but actually, another meaning of mian is “continuous”, like if you try to pull cotton apart, it will stick together. So this means movements put together without visible seams. You can read more about this way of practice here in Chen Weiming’s book “TAIJI BOXING ACCORDING TO SHI DIAOMEI”.
The main reason, and the most important aspect is to have a long form as a pedagogical tool, is like having a coat hanger, a rack or a locker to keep your clothes in. It’s a way to organise knowledge in a way so you will remember all sorts of techniques and different methods. You’ll keep everything you know there, organised and easy to look through. In your form, or forms, you should be able to find everything you learn in your art. It’s like a dense catalogue, or a list, of all your punches, kicks, throws, take-downs, qinna, etc.
A Tai Chi form is usually put together so you can learn step by step one category of methods after another. If you look at all traditional Taiji forms, they start of rather stationary. In the beginning of the form, you don’t walk very much, it’s quite stationary.
So when you learn the first movements in the form, you will usually be introduced to basic balance breaking methods, as well as ways to parry and block. In the end of the first part pf the traditional Yang form, you will be introduced to more strikes and punches. The second part of the form starts of with throwing and anti-grappling methods, and then kicks. In the third part, even more footwork and more kicks are introduced, as well as more advanced types of qinna/joint locking techniques etc.
The long traditional Yang Tai Chi forms, regardless school or lineage, are all constructed the same way. Basic methods are taught first and the footwork is simple. And later in the form, you can find more advanced techniques as well as more advanced footwork.
The message is very clear. First learn to maintain your own balance and structure. When you have found your own balance and know how to maintain it, you can start to move around more and do more. Basics first, advanced methods later.
For the practice itself, the structure of the form will help you to warm up the system before doing any kicks or sometimes jumps. With a traditional long form, you won’t need any additional warm up. Though it’s good to do some standing wuji meditation before starting to practice the Tai Chi form.
Personally, I don’t believe in shorter forms other than a supplementary practice. The actual length of a long form is important. Even though there are repetitions, you need a certain amount of changes and variations to learn how to really change between movements.
It might seem that the length is of less importance for Tai Chi as health practice only, but I believe that the length is crucial here as well. You need some time to really warm up the system. 20 minutes of practice is for repetition only, to keep up want you know. But to develop in your practice, you need more than that. When you practice Tai Chi, you should build up a certain heat within the body. This is first about an internal warm up of the body that cannot be achieved with external additional war, up. You should feel warm, the breath should gain freedom and your whole body should feel liveliness.
There’s a process here that takes time for the body to reach its full potential. And it’s when you have reached this stage your real practice start. After a good 40 minutes of Tai Chi form practice or so, your body should feel just as good and comfortable as if you’ve had a session of traditional massage. If you just rush through a shorter version, as the 24 variant. just for the sake of doing it, you just won’t get the same deep impact from your Tai Chi practice.
And then there are different types of forms even in Tai Chi. Some Chen schools have four or five different bare-handed forms. Yang style lineages only have up to ten different forms, slow, fast, small frame etc. And then there are the weapon forms. But still, one long form is mostly regarded as the core of the system.
But in my own opinion, people put too much emphasis on forms practice, not only in Tai Chi Chuan, but in Chinese Martial Arts in general. People should spend more time finding partners to do partner exercises and schools should focus more on this as well. The problem is that people regard forms as something magic. “Do forms and you will learn to fight eventually, without even practicing fighting.” This is the main problem with Chinese Martial Arts. In my own humble opinion of course.
Here, if you want to watch, is a video with some more thoughts regarding forms in Chinese Martial Arts. I highly recommend to take a look at the channel as well, where you can watch many different interviews and demonstrations of different styles, with internal arts as its main focus:
Yang Cheng Fu’s Ten Essentials as recorded in a ghost written book is something most serious Tai chi practitioner have heard about and try to follow, and the book itself is regarded as a classic. Number five is about the shoulders. Here exemplary translated by Lee Fife so I don’t need to do much job:
沉肩者， 肩松开下垂也。 Sink (chen) the shoulder means the shoulder loosens, opens, and hangs down
若不能松垂， 两肩端起， 则气亦随之而上， 全身皆不得力矣。 Without the skill of song and hanging, both shoulders will rise
and subsequently the qi will also go up. (when this happens) the whole body cannot achieve power.
坠肘者， 肘往下松垂之意， Drop (zhui) the elbow means the elbow goes down with the yi of song and hanging (c hui).
肘若悬起， 则肩不能沉， 放人不远， 近于外家之断劲矣。 If the elbow is suspended and rising, then the shoulder is not able to sink and your discharge (fang) will not send someone far. (Your discharge) is then almost the same as the broken jin of the external arts.”
“Sinking the shoulders is to let the shoulders be song and drop downwards. If not, both shoulders will rise causing qi to rise in them. No strength can be exerted from the body if this happens. Weighting down the elbow is to direct the elbows downward and be song. If the elbows rise up, the shoulders will have great difficulty in sinking, thus affecting the strength of your internal power, and you will not be able to throw your opponent away. This is similar to what is known as ‘stifling the power’ in external martial arts.”
Usually this “commandment” is understood as “sink the shoulders” and keep them sunk. This is what Tai Chi teachers usually say: “Keep the shoulders and elbows down“. But in fact, this a bit problematic, though most people don’t understand why.
The Character for sink is “沉 “, Chén, one of the 1000 most common characters in the Chinese language. It’s the same character as in “Qi chen” or “the Qi sinks,” and in modern Chinese you can find it in words as 冥想, chénsī, meaning meditation and 沉重, chénzhòng meaning heavy. The character consists of two parts, the character for cow, “niu,” which originally is a picture of a cows head, together with the character for a flowing river. The character Chen comes from ancient times when people sacrificed animals by drowning them in rivers. These rituals are mentioned in books as the Zhou Li, a classic about old customs and etiquette.
From these descriptions, you should understand that “chen” here in this context of sinking the shoulders is not about actively sinking something, but about letting the shoulders sink down by themselves. To let the shoulders sink, you use “song” – release, loosen up or to relax. Chen the shoulders, or letting the shoulders sink,is not about pressing the shoulders down or keep them down by force.
Just as you shouldn’t keep your shoulders unnecessarily high or stiff, it is just as important to not press the shoulders down, or force them to maintain a “sunk” position. Instead they should hang down naturally, be loose and have mobility. Otherwise, you will have problem.
The thing is that many Tai Chi practitioners have very loose and soft backs, from the lower back to the upper back. But the neck and jaws can still have tension. And this is a common thing. What exactly inspired me to write more about shoulders was a passage in the quote from Mr He Jinghan:
“In fact the shoulders have two locations. Close up to the neck there is the area which takes the load when we are carrying something heavy – or stretch to take out our wallet.”
Now, many Tai Chi practitioners are afraid to move the shoulders or to lift them, so they constantly force them down, in a more or less locked position. If you do like this, forcing the shoulders down, or keeping them in a stiff position, you will have a constant load on that area, the area between the shoulder joint, up to the neck where the jaws are attached, just as you were lifting or holding a heavy object. So if you press the shoulders down or lock them in a downward position, you might think that you relax the shoulders, but instead you will create another tension in your body, tension that can give you problems with stiff muscles, jaws and give you a headache.
So when you move through your form, don’t be afraid to have a natural mobility in the shoulders. In daily life, try to relax you body, but don’t be afraid to lift your shoulders. Your neck posture, jaw position, shoulders, chest – all of these parts constantly shift their positions in daily life, as you move, look around, shift posture. They need to be able to adjust to each other naturally without you trying to force your body into this or that position. If you force your body, you will end up tensing your breath, tensing your jaws, feel uncomfortable in your body. Instead, let it all be and learn to let your shoulders and all of the rest of the body to relax in the way it wants to relax.
This is probably the most important and meaningful post I have written and could ever write on this blog. Yet I know that not only the subject, but merely the title alone will make people ignore it, shun it. The scapula or shoulder blades will probably interest very few, except as maybe a trained physician for intellectual reasons. I know this even before I have publish it, that very few will read it. And with time it will be forgotten.
I know this not only because of my own experience of what interests people in general. The problem runs much deeper. Whatever we see, hear and experience, is understood in our own bodies through chemical reactions. Signals from the brain goes through the body and return with responses. The problem is that people have very little awareness in this area, the scapula, so when most people see or hear this word, there is very little response in their own bodies, in this very area. And therefore the probability that he or she will ignore it or find it uninteresting is very high.
But maybe if I have succeeded to pull your attention to this article by now, I might be able to keep you in here for a while. I hope so.
What it means by what I tried to explain above is that it’s very likely that you won’t understand the importance of this subject, this area in your own body, without proper guidance with a good teacher who can teach you specific exercises. You can only understand what you have missed by own practice, and by starting to regain what you have lost. Without learning how to actively use the scapula instead of just letting it hang there passively, you just won’t understand the advantage and benefits of actually being able to move and use it in another way.
Because this is an area of the body that most people don’t use. People tend to use their fingers and hands, most movements moving the hands and fingers comes usually more from the elbow joints and less from the shoulder joint. The whole of the back is usually mostly held passively. The activity going on in the back area is usually not about moving it, but instead about keeping it immovable and create tensions, as keeping the shoulders raised and the jaws clenched.
Even for people who exercises and deal with sports, they still make very little use of many core muscles in the back.
What happens for most people using the body, as people usually do in daily life, is that thick areas of fascia connecting the muscles together close to the spine, all the way from neck down to the tailbone, will contract, become harder and unmovable. This in turn will make the muscles in the back become stiff, tense and unmovable. The only way to reverse this negative development and to regain movability in the back is exercises that move the muscles in the back. The body needs movement to stay healthy. All of the body, not just the joints and limbs.
Some Tai Chi teachers regard scapula/ shoulder blades practice as secrets, or something kept for indoor students only, some teaches it openly and regard it as a natural part of the practice. But lets face it, basic IMA (Internal Martial Arts) movement is hard enough. Finding the correct balance and alignment, and dealing with body coordination moving from the core is hard enough. Before being able to make real good use of the scapula in IMA, or in martial arts in general, the practitioner needs to first have built a proper foundation. And this can take many years.
These principles we are discussing here are no secrets, and in fact they are here and there, and pieces of them are to be found everywhere. Many teachers have exercises and whole sets for activating the scapula and develop movability and movement. But the practitioners themselves rarely pay attention or understand the importance of these until they have reached a certain level of general understanding of body movement. And maybe also some degree of body awareness is necessary.
“Q – You just now referred to shoulders. Could you explain how to effectively use your shoulders?
A – Most people think that the arms start from the shoulders. In fact the shoulders have two locations. Close up to the neck there is the area which takes the load when we are carrying something heavy – or stretch to take out our wallet. However the arm in fact starts at the shoulder blade in the back; this enables the arm to stretch across the body. So if we want to use the arm effectively we must first effectively use the shoulder blade. But this part of the body has for a long time been overlooked by most people.
Q – So the arm can be thought of as similar to a chicken’s wing.
A – This is a very good analogy. The root of a chicken’s wing is like a human shoulder blade. When a chicken flaps its wings it uses this part.
Q – Normally we only occasionally use the shoulder blade. However, can basic training in Bagua Daoyin open out the numerous parts of the body which we have neglected?
A – We consider that the body has four main joints, the two shoulder blades and the two hip joints. These are the key joints that connect the four limbs to the body. When you begin Bagua Daoyin you will certainly open up these joints.
Q – How does opening up these four joints benefit us?
A – Joints enable us to move easily. However, they can degenerate if they are immobilized for a long time or if their turning range is restricted. This can affect not only movement but also the circulation of the Qi and the blood. So when we open up a joint and enlarge the gap in a joint and its range of movement it makes it easier for us to move smoothly.
Q – The Taiji Quan that we usually see seems flexible and agile, as if the body had no bones, but has a limited range of joint movements. Would it be improved if it were combined with the joint movements of Bagua Daoyin?
A – Although I have long specialized in Bagua, I have practiced and studied Taiji Quan for over thirty years. In particular practicing Bagua Quan has deepened my anatomical understanding of Taiji Quan to a degree that would not ordinarily have been possible. To sum up, even if you do not practice martial arts, if you open up your joints, you will, at the very least, give yourself a lively and free body.
Now I didn’t put this up to suggest you studying Bagua Daoyin, but to show you that there are teachers from various styles who have this knowledge. I suggest that you read the whole discussion in the interview. I agree that this type of movement is mostly overlooked in Taijiquan, which means that they don’t make full use of the arms. Some Yang stylists speak about “Changjin” or “long energy”, but if they don’t know how to move from the scapula, their long movement is not what I personally would call so.
I like the analogy with the chickens wing. In IMA, sometimes also seen in Taijiquan, there are exercises called “Crane’s Wing” that have the same purpose, to activate movements from the scapula. These and similar exercise are very common in some Bagua schools and in arts as Tongbei, or literary “through the back”, an art which is designed to create long, powerful movement connected deeply from the back.
You can also compare what they discuss with other animals. If you have watched how big cat animals walk, you can see that they walk with the scapula shooting up and down as they walk. Gorillas do the same. And if you find or have looked at videos of cats stretching out the claw to attack, you can see that they stretch out the whole arm, all the way from the scapula. Animals make great use of all of their limbs by initiating the movement all the way from the back. Humans initiate movements from the end of the limbs, which is obviously just the opposite. But if you look at smaller children, they tend to use their whole bodies more actively and if you look at their shoulder blades, they seem to be more free and movable than those of adults.
Again, I don’t believe that scapula exercises are so rare that people might believe. I rather think that they are mostly ignored or shunned for the reasons I have already stated. I myself have had the privilege of learning several whole sets of exercises for scapula movement only from Tai Chi teachers. I learned some of them here in my own home country and some from a teacher in Beijing when I stayed there briefly. Those teachers put a great emphasis on the scapula and taught how to release it, create freedom and how to use it in an active manner. From one of them I learned very good loosening and awareness exercises. The other one taught and put the emphasise on, how to initiate movement from, and use the muscles between, the spine and shoulder blade. Tai Chi ruler exercises was also a part of this training.
Now you can also look at this video that the same teacher from the interview, He Jinghan published. Even if you don’t understand Chinese, you can understand a whole lot be watching how he points at different parts of his student’s scapula and show how it moves. The discussion goes like this: “Feihua!” Meaning bullshit “You need to practice, you need to learn how to move it by practice.” He goes on to show how it moves, the whole range of possibility of movements. Later in the video he takes off his shirt and show how he himself use this are in an active, lively manner. And by the end of the video, he shows the beginning, or “lift hands” in Tai Chi and explain by showing how to move from the scapula:
As I said, this is not totally forgotten in Tai Chi Chuan either. Mostly ignored, and mostly kept for long time students who have achieved the development of a necessary foundation. Some teachers though speak about this openly and try to teach beginners and short-time students. Erle Montague for instance, even if there are many opinions about what he did and from where things come from, he had some very good ideas that I personally believe must have come from very good and reliable sources. Here in this article he writes abut the scapula and about the importance to initiate arm movement deep from the scapula:
“The scapular control what the arms do. So if we are able to use the scapular in a manner that causes the hands and arms to move, then ‘sung’ and yin and yang are only a short distance away. However, it is not an easy matter to get the scapular working as it requires some amount of muscle isolation.You must be able to move your scapular independently of each other. In other words you must be able to stick one scapular out while the other one is not and visa-versa and you must also have to stick both of them out at the same time.”
If you go to the article, you can see pictures of how he does. He also says that this kind of movement is what you should use when you do a Tai Chi form. Some people I have spoken with who have met Montaigue all have said that he had really strong, scary punching power. I never met him, but from the things I have heard, and from my own general experience from different methods, I would personally suggest that at least some of his ability to generate power had to do with his ability to use his scapula actively and thus make more full use of his limbs.
Regardless if you find sets designed to awaken and to use the scapula actively through Tai Chi Chuan teachers or import them from other styles as Bagua, Tongbei or Pigua, I would personally, suggest that Tai Chi students follow the progression of building body method should follow the structure that I have lined up here. You should carefully study body movement step by step, beginning with building balance and rooting.
This means that there is no reason to stress or try to become an expert of your own scapula before you have built a foundation and have good understanding of general Tai ci principles. Why I say this is because I have watched many people try to learn upper body movement without first having a strong lower body foundation. When they use the upper body in a more active manner, they become stiff, unbalanced, hard. They tend to forget the most basic things in Tai chi and overemphasise the upper body structure and movement. The movement should first be rooted in the legs and feet and you ned to know how to coordinate all of the body’s movement from the Dantian.
One teacher used the analogy of a building. The arm is like a balcony, it cannot be attached on the outside, it must be attached strongly from the inside of the building. This means that the arm should be connected right from the muscles deep inside the back, between spine and shoulder blade. If it’s attached only from the shoulder, it’s like a balcony attached to the surface of the building. The building itself must be firmly built fro the ground, and attached deep into the ground, in such a way that the whole structure stands firmly without any chance of falling or being pushed down by outer forces.
Our own development in Tai Chi should be like building a house, it starts with the foundation, from the ground and up. You can’t really skip any stage. If you try to cheat, you won’t achieve necessary movability and softness, instead you will become stiff and your body will become unbalanced and easy to topple. So if you are interested in this kind of movement but have no teacher for the moment, there’s no need to rush, you still have plenty of time to search, study and learn.
Thoughts On Tai Chi 